Using vehicle draft to generate electricity

Have you ever stood by a freeway as a big truck goes by at 75 miles per hour? Not many people have. When I was a young man I often hitch hiked. When a truck went by I could feel the strong wind draft.

Race car drivers try to take advantage of the draft of a preceding car.

If all the freeways had turbines installed on the sides of the roads, the vehicle draft would turn the turbines and create electricity.

With new, huge, boring machines it is becoming more economical to build tunnels. These can be private, as the story below indicates.

All tunnels could have turbines installed that would use vehicle draft to generate electricity. Imagine a user of a tunnel paying a fee to drive through, and while driving through, the user is creating electricity that is being transferred to the user's own home!

Charles Tolleson

NY's 16-mile car tunnel would be longest, By FRANK ELTMAN, Associated Press Writer, Jan 27 2008

It would be the world's longest highway tunnel, running more than 16 miles under the west end of Long Island Sound.

The cost is estimated at $10 billion - and it wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime. A developer wants to build the tunnel with private money, recouping his costs by charging drivers $25 each way and by selling advertising.

Developer Vincent Polimeni says the tunnel between Oyster Bay and Rye on the New York mainland would let travelers going between Long Island and New England avoid crowded New York City highways and help alleviate traffic congestion.

While not expected to be completed before 2025, the proposal received renewed attention this past week when a state Senate committee held a hearing.

Polimeni has also employed the engineering and construction firm Hatch Mott MacDonald, which has been involved in tunnel projects worldwide, including the 30-mile railroad "Chunnel" that connects Great Britain and France.

At 16 to 18 miles long, depending on the final design, the Long Island Sound project would eclipse Norway's 15.2-mile Laerdal Tunnel as the world's longest highway tunnel.

It would consist of two tubes carrying three lanes of traffic each, plus a central tunnel to be used for maintenance access and emergency ventilation and egress.